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You just make things appear too simple about Germany. U.S.A reputedly have the best universities in the world (Harvard, Stanford, M.I.T., Berkeley…). If you have a country of over 310 million people, statistics say your chances of having more smart & talented people are going to be higher (and it’s probably true in this case). Of course, Commodore and Atari were American companies. So there seems to be a “bug” in your reasoning.
First let’s not going to expand too far on this population criteria. Norway has a population of 5 Million individuals, while Italy has a population of roughly 60 Million. Now let’s count the number and quality of demos released in these two countries. Mmmh… no, it doesn’t match.
So let’s list a few other well known criteria.
a/ Equipment in previous generation (8-bits) computers. A very active C64 scene gave birth to the Amiga scene. There was competition, incentive, motivation. C64 had the best music on top of any other good features. Enough to be attractive for many teens during the 80’s, and a prime reason for creating your own “tribes”.
b/ No other 8-bits computers gave rise to a similar scene phenomena. Before the Amiga I’ve been active on the CPC platform since 1984 (coder, cracker, supplier, swapper). There were clubs, no real groups during the first years of CPC. Clubs also were like permanent copy-parties. Only stand-alone people spreading their own releases with their handles. No intros, no demos, no groups. Also we were programming tools, small games, and of course removing protections before swapping with others. The first CPC groups came very late and mainly got inspiration from the C64. I wasn’t here anymore. The Amiga got me before that.
c/ Sales figures: C64 was the leading 8-bits platform in Northern Europe. Speccy was number one in the UK (with a lot of C64s too). CPC topped the sales in France and in a number of Southern Europe countries. Read this and compare with the Amiga scene at its beginnings. No comment!
Oh, why these sales figures? Of course, this is due to sales and marketing policies of computer manufacturers, and nothing else. There’s no country with intelligent or stupid consumers. Just the shops nearby, what you can find in these shops, i.e. computers, software, hardware extensions, and prices at which they were sold. Again, just logic.
d/ Equipment in modems in the mid-80’s to early 90’s. The funny thing here is Minitel. Millions had modems in France (including me/my parents), with models ranging from 1200 to 9600 bps (yeah, it was possible with the Minitel 2!). Two drawbacks: the network was only nation-wide, and if you had a Minitel, why bother getting a standard modem? If you ask early American sysops if they had a lot of French people on their BBS’s, the response would be of course “no, just a few”. The C64 sceners in Germany, UK, Benelux, Scandinavia who had modems and connected to US BBS’s were called real elite, they were kings with their 300 to 1200 bps modems while lamers were begging for stuff. At the same time millions had faster modems in France, but these were useless to reach the US boards. So came the Amiga, along with a different marketing policy, and with the Amiga the challenge of making groups and competing internationally. More USR HST were imported to France, and the country rapidly caught up its delay.
e/ Why more demo groups or more crack groups in certain countries as compared to others?
Let’s start with demos. For long Scandinavia made the best demos and their sceners were the most prolific in doing so. Why? Mainly because of seasons, and daytime. In winter when it’s dark and cold outside you come home and you code your next demo. You meet with your friends inside, not outside. Are you doing the same in Italy or Spain? No. Not because you’re uneducated, but because you often think you have better to do thanks to the better climate. Oh, and are Scandinavians good at football? Well… And are Italian and Spanish people better at football? Seems like…
Now crack groups. Here it’s just about where the games were going out first. We did say there was competition between groups to be the more elite ones. If you did not have the originals in time, forget it. Of course later when fast modems were widespread, you could lead a group from whatever country on the earth. Elite also did not have the same meaning. In the early years of Amiga, the first elite groups had their core members in one country – even preferably in one main city – because of the proximity between the original supplier and the cracker, this when both were not the same person. A spreader/trader nearby would also be handy. International people were here mainly for swapping and spreading the word and stuff. So, your best bet to become an elite group was one of three countries where the most games were released: UK, Germany and France.
And of course, not because some nationalities are smarter than others. Racism and chauvinism truly have no rational basis.
Added 17 minutes later:
Also let’s add this, if you allow me:
f/ Music in the 80’s, and musical preferences. I mean, different tastes on both sides of the Atlantic. In Europe new wave introduced electronic music to a wide audience. This was supplemented with ebm, industrial, and continued with techno music. These genres were marrying very well with computers. The group/band/tribe effect worked to its full potential. On the Western side of the ocean, music charts had more rock, blues, soul, with vocals, all things more difficult to reproduce on a computer. Hence, less motivation and incentive to make computer musics and demos.
g/ If you take US Robotics and similar manufacturers as the norm, modems were mostly “made in USA”. Also one should not forget that in many places in the U.S., distances are greater than in Europe. Los Angeles alone is 100 km long – and that’s a populated place! A lot of people live more remotely from downtown centers. Not only modems, but also radio communications, are more common than on the old continent. Thus, less demos of course, but also a lot more BBS’s and people using modems.